Young Catherine as Bridge: Past, Present, and Future in Wuthering Heights

Young Catherine's Connection to the Past

In Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, the past shapes events and sets the foundation for the future. All the characters are affected by the past to varying degrees. Heathcliff becomes singularly consumed by the past—his love for Catherine never having been rightfully manifest or consummated, and he had to watch the love of his life marry and bear children with another. His anger and despair so totally consume him that he cannot contain his rage and wreaks havoc on the lives of others, including his own son. Yet there is no other character in Wuthering Heights who can contribute to the meaning of the work as a whole through her connection with past, present, and future as effectively as the younger Catherine.

Young Catherine is named after her mother for a reason. She carries with her some of her mother's character traits, even having never known her mother, who died in childbirth. Catherine also barely heard of her mother because of the great pain she caused to Edgar and to everyone else in her wake. Therefore, the personality of young Catherine resembles her mother either due to genetic reasons or to the persistence of history and the effects of atmosphere on her soul. Catherine the younger differs from her mother in the ways that make her character significant to the outcome of the story and to the fulfillment of its major themes, including redemption and the importance of genealogy.

Catherine's relationship to the past is anchored in her name, her body, and her genes. She was born on the day her mother died, linking her forever to a bittersweet and paradoxical memory of the past. For Catherine junior, the past holds no cognitive sway. Unlike Heathcliff, Edgar, or Nelly the narrator, Catherine is never able to know her mother. She is not biased by her opinion of her mother, and only knows that she carries half her mother's DNA. It is ironically because of this that Catherine junior awakens Heathcliff out of his hatred-filled stupor in his dying days. Serving as a symbolic bridge between the world of the living and that of the dead, Catherine junior plays the unwitting role of linking past, present, and future. When he is about to die, Heathcliff cannot help but notice how alike Catherine and her namesake mother look, and the facial features that once gripped and ravaged him haunt him fully in the visage of young Catherine.

Catherine as Symbolic Bridge

Heathcliff torments Catherine only slightly less than he does his own son Linton or his surrogate son Hareton. Yet Catherine is stronger than her mother and more able to withstand Heathcliff's hatred. Therefore, Catherine represents the potential of the present to serve as a bridge between past and future. She is perfectly poised between past and future to serve as the fulcrum balancing the disparate elements and characters of Wuthering Heights.

As she appears halfway through the novel, young Catherine is literally the balancing point of the story. She bears some of her mother's characteristics, both physical and psychological. Heathcliff sees in young Catherine her mother's eyes and face, but it is more than that, for Catherine is at times as arrogant and stubborn as Catherine the elder once was. In the present, young Catherine forges a bond between the people that drove her mother to her demise. Catherine represents the love that was shared between her mother and Edgar, which is why she also reminds Heathcliff of what he lost and the sorrows that ultimately doomed him.

As the emblem of the present, Catherine also signifies the perpetuation of time through the land. The land, and family estates situated on the land, become prevalent motifs and meaningful themes in Brontë's work. Through the family estates of Thrushcross Grange and Wuthering Heights, the status of the family is communicated throughout the generations. Catherine's presence on these estates anchors the narrative's exploration of how property and inheritance shape destiny.